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Heroes, in a nutshell, is a game in which two teams are trying to destroy the Core of the opposing team. The Core is similar to the Ancient in DotA or the Nexus in League. Each team has a base with Forts, Towers, Gates, Healing Wells, and Walls to help them defend their core.

At regular intervals waves of NPC Minions spawn in each base and march down pre-defined lanes to attack the enemy. It is the job of the players to help attack down these lanes and destroy the enemy team's base and ultimately their Core. To help with this, each of the maps has a special map objective that gives a big bonus of some sort to the team that completes the objective. Generally each objective will be completed 3-5 times per match before the core is destroyed.

Just like the waves of NPC Minions who spawn and march towards each other in battle, so too do the player characters respawn when they die and continue to fight. The amount of time it takes to respawn is directly related to how long the game has been running. In a new game that is only minutes old, a player will respawn almost immediately. In games over 15 minutes in length the spawn timers will reach a full 60 seconds.

Core: The first team to destroy their opponent's Core wins the map. The Core has a recharging shield which is worth about 15% of the total health of the Core. This shield regenerates very quickly when the Core is out of combat for 8 seconds. The Core also shoots a lightning blast at a target that will also damage enemies near that target. It follows the same targeting rules as Forts and Towers (see below), but is immune to many effect that shut down structures.

Tower: The first line of defense in each base. Towers have limited ammo which regenerates over time. Towers prioritize minions and summoned units and will ignore player characters as long as there is a minion or summoned unit within range. Unlike other MOBAs, the Towers in Heroes will not target a player character if that character attacks an enemy hero while within range.

Forts: Each lane has one Fort, which is located behind a wall and two towers. These Forts have a lot of HP and attack with ammo just like Towers do, but they also slow enemy movement and attack speed which makes them a decent place to defend from. Destroying a Fort yields a considerable XP payout, making them primary targets in the early game.

Keeps: After a Fort, the last line of a lane's defense before the Core are Keeps. These function similarly to Forts, and will also pay out big XP if destroyed. If a keep is destroyed, the opposing lane will start spawning long-range, high-damage catapults alongside the usual minions. Therefore, it's very important protect your keeps while destroying your opponents'.

Healing Wells: If you have played Warcraft 3 then you are probably familiar with the Healing Wells, as they operate similarly to the Moon Wells of the Night Elves. They are on a timer, and restore Health and Mana when you click them. The Health and Mana provided by these Wells is not instant, as the restoration happens over time.

Spawn Point: Each team spawns behind their Core in the safety of their base. There is a magical shield barrier that prevents the enemy team from entering the spawn location, and this shield stops all spells and attacks. Spawn Points also have instant-mounting while you are inside, and you regenerate Health and Mana at a very fast rate while standing in the spawn.

Minions spawn down the lane like merry lemmings just waiting to die to a tower or hero. They are...

1. Soldiers: Dudes with swords, they lead the minion waves. Tend to have higher-than-average HP and a weak melee attack.2. Archers: Dudes with, get this, bows. They're in the back of the wave, boasting lower HP but a decent ranged attack.3. Mages: Wizards that coast in the middle of the pack. They deal ranged damage, but the more important thing is that they drop a green orb on death that will give you and nearby teammates a little bit of HP and mana back. There's only one per minion wave, so try to get that orb!4. Catapults: Beefy siege units that assault bases with a long-range attack. They only spawn when the enemy's final fort in that lane has fallen, giving you incentive to keep that damn fort alive. They can easily outrange towers/forts/cores, meaning they will slowly whittle down a base unless stopped.

Each map also contains a scattering of Mercenary Camps in the "jungle" area between the lanes. These Merc Camps are neutral NPCs that can be defeated by players and hired to fight for the team that captures them. To capture a Mercenary Camp, the players must defeat them in combat (or bribe them) and then stand within a capture circle for a few seconds to gain control of the camp. It is possible for the enemy team to steal the camps if they push you out of the circle or kill you before you can claim it.

1. Siege Camps: These camps contain two giant siege monsters which hurl large rocks at their enemies. They have long range and can out-range towers and forts, which make them very advantageous for lane pushing. These are the easiest camps to defeat and can be solo'd by most heroes by level 10.2. Bruiser Camps: Formerly known as the "Knight Camps," these are squads of 4 soldiers (3 melee and 1 spellcaster) who possess a lot of HP and decent damage damage. These camps are more difficult to take and typically require 1-2 people to capture.3. Boss Camps: These camps generally require 3+ heroes to kill, depending on team levels and what heroes are present. These are high HP / high Damage monsters that can do devastating amounts of damage in a lane. They ignore minions and other mercenaries and will only target enemy structures. They cast a Pound skill that can be avoided by moving out of the telegraphed smash circle. They also cast a targeted root spell on occasion against enemy heroes, telegraphed by a smaller circle.4. Map-Specific Creeps: From pirates on Blackheart Bay to the plant monsters in the Garden of Terror, these mercs will NOT join your side, but instead drop objective-relevant items that help you win the game like skulls, coins, and so on. Difficulty and rewards vary by map.

So what else? There is no item shop. No in-game gold. No items to be bought. No shoes or rods of whatever. "Blasphemy!" you might say, but Heroes is feeling pretty heretical. Instead of items, you get talents roughly every 3-4 levels. These are anywhere from 2-5 choices that change how your character functions. It might be "killing minions gives you more damage" or "your auto-attacks now slow enemies." At level 10 you unlock your Heroic Ability (aka your ult), and even that has choices! Every character has two heroic abilities, so pick the one most suited for the current game.

If you have played other MOBAs and are accustomed to buying boots, this game doesn't have them. Instead it has Mounts (default Z key). Attacking or taking damage dismounts you, and re-mounting does have a brief cooldown. Not all characters can mount up, but instead have mobility skills that in most cases let them get to an area REALLY FAST but has a much longer cooldown.

Just had an unranked match where these guys are mad at me for last picking ZJ into Johanna, their single blind. We needed some kind of consistent, safe damage, and I didn't want to play Fenix. Anyway, cue first fight and Deckard is giving me a potion outline and I die. The next 15 minutes are everyone but our Tracer talking shit about my play. I keep calm, and play my brains out. Get two double kills with Guillotine, finish Headhunter in 5 minutes, and wind up MVP. Might not have been the best pick, but I still feel good about it.

You generally don’t want to dingo because she can shut it down but you’re right that you need consistent damage anyway and she can’t blind you 100% of the time, and your w axes are good damage too and extremely punish ktz for stepping up which he has to do.

A mage would have been more waveclear which is nice depending on the map, but I think you’re fine. People don’t really know what they’re flaming about half the time.

Just had an unranked match where these guys are mad at me for last picking ZJ into Johanna, their single blind. We needed some kind of consistent, safe damage, and I didn't want to play Fenix. Anyway, cue first fight and Deckard is giving me a potion outline and I die. The next 15 minutes are everyone but our Tracer talking shit about my play. I keep calm, and play my brains out. Get two double kills with Guillotine, finish Headhunter in 5 minutes, and wind up MVP. Might not have been the best pick, but I still feel good about it.

There are definitely worse picks that you could have taken but since the other team isn't playing anything like meta, I'm not sure it would have mattered. Lunara, Guldan, Kael are the picks I probably would have leaned towards if you were comfortable on them. The other team is based around getting a quick blowup in the first few seconds of the fight so sustained damage isn't as critical as it would normally be. Fights are generally going to be decided around if they manage to land one their their many CCs and follow it up into a kill.

Lunara is slightly safer from the ranged damage perspective as you're more mobile than zul'jin and have access to long range poke from your ultimate and aren't totally shut down by blinds. Guldan and Kael can quickly follow up on a Garrosh throw and provide wave clear that your team lacks. If this was a super competitive game, I'd probably lean towards one of those picks.

In the end through, it didn't really matter and you were better off playing the hero that you wanted to play. Good job not tilting from the negative attitude of your teammates and doing your best regardless of circumstance.

Jo's blind is the least important part of her kit by a wide margin and I wish people would stop treating it like it's a big deal. Outside of countering specific abilities like tazdingo and cursed strikes it's just a little extra damage mitigation.

Jo's blind is the least important part of her kit by a wide margin and I wish people would stop treating it like it's a big deal. Outside of countering specific abilities like tazdingo and cursed strikes it's just a little extra damage mitigation.

And healing! I mean, if you spec into it, which I’m not sure is the right choice.

Jo's blind is the least important part of her kit by a wide margin and I wish people would stop treating it like it's a big deal. Outside of countering specific abilities like tazdingo and cursed strikes it's just a little extra damage mitigation.

And healing! I mean, if you spec into it, which I’m not sure is the right choice.

I generally don't consider level 16 talents at all representative of a character unless it's such a big spike (ie, OG ignite) that you build your entire gameplan around it.

That's also why I generally consider Lucio to be closer to Tyrande than other healers.

Played some Naz. I feel good enough with him that I'll occasionally ignore meta. So I went with SPOIDERS! build.

The other team had 2 squishies and by God my little pals chased them down so many times. Was fun!

Then on spider queen, went naz again and played PVE. Stat line 0-0-0 until level 18 when i accidentally spidered a mage on the other side of a fort. Living the dream. Auto completed Vile at 20 with almost 200 stacks and showed up to my first and only team fight. Killed everyone.

Jo's blind is the least important part of her kit by a wide margin and I wish people would stop treating it like it's a big deal. Outside of countering specific abilities like tazdingo and cursed strikes it's just a little extra damage mitigation.

And healing! I mean, if you spec into it, which I’m not sure is the right choice.

The heal on 16 is a big improvement to her kit and taking it has definitely improved my jo game.

Her E is safe poke on a low cooldown for stopping a channel or unmounting half the enemy team

I wish all my teammates listened to me like this. I love that location for surprise Mosh Pits. I was shot calling all game and built up enough trust from the team to make that call before we got to the point. Once in position, I just kept telling everyone to hold back. It was tense. I almost went right when Alex popped, but knew I should wait a split second longer since they would all push with her.

The rest was history. Alex died about 5 seconds later and we got the core EZ.

Not sure. I've been keeping an ear out, but haven't heard much about balance updates, although one would assume Raynor's on the chopping block because well, obviously. Speaking of not hearing much, it feels well past due for a hero announcement, right? Yrel was released on the 12th of June, I think, which was a month and a half ago at this point. And I know Azmo/Raynor might as well count as "new heroes" since they were both redesigned essentially from the ground up. I'm cool with that. But it does still seem like it's been a long time with no information at all on the next hero to launch. A teaser or something has to be coming soon.

Just be EASY with Raynor, Blizz. I like the hero. I like the redesign. Please please please do not nuke him into paste. (I still think getting rid of Ace in the Hole would be a fair swing, though possibly not enough still)

Not sure. I've been keeping an ear out, but haven't heard much about balance updates, although one would assume Raynor's on the chopping block because well, obviously. Speaking of not hearing much, it feels well past due for a hero announcement, right? Yrel was released on the 12th of June, I think, which was a month and a half ago at this point. And I know Azmo/Raynor might as well count as "new heroes" since they were both redesigned essentially from the ground up. I'm cool with that. But it does still seem like it's been a long time with no information at all on the next hero to launch. A teaser or something has to be coming soon.

Mmm, not necessarily "well past due"? We are due for a new Hero teaser though, yes. ~7 weeks is the norm between new Heroes now. There was a 7 week gap between Deckard (4/24) and Yrel (6/12), with the Lunara/Diablo rework patch in-between (5/22)

Yrel released on 6/12, Jimmy/Azmo rework patch was 7/10. We SHOULD have gotten a teaser last week with PTR going up for this week, but it'll happen this week/next week instead most likely, putting us at a projected release date of 8/7. ...Hopefully.

So that'll be... 8 weeks instead of 7, but. That's still fine, just one extra week. I've been having a blast with Azmo and Jimmy in the meantime.

But oh man according to Reddit it's like the end of the fuckin' world OH NO EIGHT WEEKS THAT'S UNHEARD OF MUTINY REVOLT OVERTHROW THE DICTATORS

I've encountered a HL problem, which may sound arrogant, but isn't meant to be. I feel like I have to Tank (Garrosh/ETC/Muradin) in order to control engages. Even more important though is when pulling out of fights.

I'm finding that at Silver, Assassins are the least "thinking" roles players can choose. Not saying they aren't important or mindless, but often times I see us lose fights because people "see red" and continue fighting over nothing. It happens to the best of us, especially when you see that low health bar, but usually isn't the right play. When I'm not on Tanks, I can't convince my team to disengage. When I am on Tank, I can ping retreat and just leave the fight, which usually makes them follow suit.

Of course, this could be that I'm focusing too much on my the last game I played before bed last night. I was first pick, and the enemy team let Raynor through. I had to take him because he's too good. We ended up with solo Tank Diablo who just kept going in, not only without back-up but on the wrong target. The enemy Johanna had a field day on us and my team got all salty because we kept dying over nothing.

Am I weird for feeling like this? I'm assuming similar things happen at higher levels too, but maybe the Tanks are smarter about the engages.

I've encountered a HL problem, which may sound arrogant, but isn't meant to be. I feel like I have to Tank (Garrosh/ETC/Muradin) in order to control engages. Even more important though is when pulling out of fights.

I'm finding that at Silver, Assassins are the least "thinking" roles players can choose. Not saying they aren't important or mindless, but often times I see us lose fights because people "see red" and continue fighting over nothing. It happens to the best of us, especially when you see that low health bar, but usually isn't the right play. When I'm not on Tanks, I can't convince my team to disengage. When I am on Tank, I can ping retreat and just leave the fight, which usually makes them follow suit.

Of course, this could be that I'm focusing too much on my the last game I played before bed last night. I was first pick, and the enemy team let Raynor through. I had to take him because he's too good. We ended up with solo Tank Diablo who just kept going in, not only without back-up but on the wrong target. The enemy Johanna had a field day on us and my team got all salty because we kept dying over nothing.

Am I weird for feeling like this? I'm assuming similar things happen at higher levels too, but maybe the Tanks are smarter about the engages.

No, you've just described the major phenomenon that burned me out on the game, along with the support corollary to it: you can't leave if they won't.